Down by the seaside (after the war)
by mous1elousi3
Summary: He is not used to this, loosing up, letting his hair down...and she is not interested in being sober.


_**A/N: Yeah, don't know where this came from. Smut warning/announcement? I…tried. Sorry. This is actually derived from the naughtier version of **_**Captain Kuchiki Takes A Holiday**_** which only exists in my head since I am currently unable to proceed with it. **_

_**Disclaimer: Characters and story universe belong to Tite Kubo, etc and I'm just playing with them.**_

**0o0**

"**Down by the seaside (after the war)"**

The sea spray is soothing against the epidermis of his gigai, warmed by the tropical sun and his partner in the hammock. Byakuya runs a finger through her hair and Rangiku barely stirs, deep in an alcohol-fuelled sleep. He plucks the half-empty bottle from her limp fingers and sticks it into the sand. A moment later a wave washes it further inland. The tide is coming in.

He is not used to this, loosing up, letting his hair down, walking around in a t-shirt and swimming trunks, waking late, staying-up most of the night, drinking, dancing, talking, fucking…and she is not interested in being sober.

This section of beach is supposed to be private, away from eyes and whispers, lined faces bearing the lineage of an ancient house, bones that creak and groan as they rise, like old wood, rotting wood. The weight of his gigai is barely perceptible under the weight of expectation. She has none. This will not continue when they leave this realm and she does not care.

A ferry traces the horizon in the distance. The wind picks up strands of Rangiku's hair and sets them to caress his face. Byakuya brushes them back and then traces a path along her face, shoulder and arm, down to the hand lying across his bared stomach. Her skin is smooth and well-tanned. He takes her hand by the palm and entwines their fingers, bringing them to rest on his chest, just above his heart. The beat is steady but picks up a little at the contact. She does not care at all, but he cares too much.

That first night he had dragged her out of the club in a jealous rage, the first he had felt in decades though he tried to cover it up by claiming that while she was technically off-duty, she still had to behave as an officer of the Gotei Thirteen. She had responded with fury, unconcerned, outraged that he thought he had the right to discipline and demanded the truth. What the hell was his problem? Who had made him her chaperone on her vacation? Where did he get off thinking that she needed his protection?

The wars have changed him, have changed them all. He does not see the need to mask his wants and desires, and she has made herself their subject. There was a time when she would not have dared to approach him, nor even have looked his way but now she greets him with smiles. That first night in the hotel she interrupted his walk on the beach after dinner and teased about taking him skinny-dipping with her sometime. How could she blame him for deciding to take her up on the offer?

He is still surprised that she did not knock him flat on his backside when he proceeded to grab her and kiss her. He is even more surprised that she very nearly lets him take her right there up against the wall.

A bird swoops low and gives cry loud enough to wake the dead. Rangiku is awake in an instant, trying to sit upright and reaching for her missing zanpakuto. It takes her a moment to remember herself, where she is and whom she is with. Then she smiles, ducking her head, cheeks pink. How innocent she looks, the coquette.

She is wearing a tiny black string bikini with a colourful, tie-dyed sarong about her waist. When they left his room she had claimed that she was going for a swim. It is a blatant lie and both know it. The ties are loose and she has been drinking all morning and late the night before too. He looks up at her and waits.

At first she pretends to look around for her bottle, though he cannot imagine where under his open shirt she expected him to hide it. But this is just a ploy to straddle him, settling just so in his lap with a slow grind that definitely catches his attention.

He lifts an eyebrow and she smiles. The hands on his chest slide up to his shoulders and she lies down to kiss him, a quick peck, once, twice and then deeper, slipping her tongue past his lips. He winds his hands up around her back and draws her closer. She rolls her hips again, squeezing his between her thighs and he starts, surprised. But when he breaks the kiss to stare at her, eyebrows raised, she merely smiles and begins to trail a series of warm, wet kisses along his jaw to his ear. Then she whispers, "Just go with it."

He cannot help himself. He looks around. They are still alone. While the beach is private it is open to the other guests at the hotel. It is also broad daylight and there are far too few trees between them and accidental voyeurs than he would like.

With a groan, she stops and sits up. He turns back to her but instead of irritation at his prudishness; she has a mischievous look in her eyes. Then, with a wink, she unties the sarong at her waist, spreads it out to its full length and then lies back as she had before, half across him, her head on his arm, one leg hooked over his hip and the sarong covering them from stomach to mid-thigh.

"Is this better?" she asks.

He says nothing, feeling at once awkward and anxious and she smiles and kisses him again.

He likes to kiss her. She is neither a novice nor shy but somehow, every time there is a point where she starts to withdraw. It is almost as if she is afraid that if she lets him he will draw out a bit of her soul. He resists her attempts to escape, of course, chasing her lips even as she moves away to focus on his neck or jaw or chin. Sometimes he would hold her by the chin, or neck or back and force her to stay, to linger and feel. And most times it does but today she is feeling audacious so her distraction is much more dramatic.

When he moves to hold her by the chin, she trails a hand down his chest between them and into his swimming trunks. He gasps, surprised, as her hand closes around the length of him, but she forces him to kiss her with the other even as she works him stiff between her fingers.

For a moment he tries to resist, to break free, remind her that they are in a very visible place and goodness, if anyone saw them and reported this to the Elders, their lord or no he would be married off the moment he got back home. But then she climbs back up unto his lap and presses down just over his groin, warm and wet and he gives up fighting. At this point it's not as if he could actually walk back up into the hotel like this anyway.

He puts his hands up around her back, pressing her against his chest but his movements shake the hammock and threaten to topple them out. She breaks their kiss then and slips her hand out his trunks to put her finger to her lips and whisper, "Shh."

He wants to protest that how can he possibly, but she forces him to lie back, still. It is not an easy request. He is tense, aroused, every nerve on edge at their unfinished game. But then she is straddling his lap again, though one leg hangs off over the side of the hammock by the knee. A moment later he learns why when she begins a slow rocking that presses their groins together with each swing of the hammock. To anyone walking by it might look, perhaps for a little while, as if they were merely swinging by her leg. When she catches the expression on his face at this she bursts out laughing. He shifts his hips a little and she cuts off with a gasp that becomes a moan.

He will not be mocked.

They are an ill-fated match. She craves oblivion, drawing it out with sake and, with him at least, mindless sex but he needs to know…things. Maybe they could work. Maybe with effort she could be convinced to consider him. He has no delusions about what his family and others will think, but he hopes that she might really want more than this.

Her slow grinding is at once painful but pleasant. But she is impatient. She forces his shorts down a little; just enough and then unties one side of her bikini bottom and guides them together with one hand while the other secures the sarong on their joined hips. The moment of contact makes them both gasp though she insists on shushing him and then their rhythm is thrown and for a moment it is all he can do to prevent them from falling out of the hammock while she rides him like a thoroughbred. And then she falls on him again, kissing him desperately, deeply, as if she's forgotten where they are.

His grip on her hip is tight; there will be marks for days. But he waits for her, he has always had very good control, and eventually she settles, slows and he whispers, "Shh."

She laughs and bites his lip and moves her hips in a slow, agonising gyration that threatens to be his undoing right there, right then. He wants her bare and wanton and loud as he does to her all the inappropriate things he can imagine. But he is a very controlled man and so he lays back and lets her have her way with him even as he feels the pressure building in the base of his spine and the precious friction created by their rocking. She looks up from kissing him and laughs again and whispers, "You should see your face right now."

He grips her by the hip and takes control of the swing away from her and is rewarded when her breathing changes to desperate gasps and little cries. Then he whispers to her, "And you should see yours."

He thinks that she has made him an exhibitionist and he loves it, Soul King help him, he does. He suspects though, that what he actually loves is her, the golden-haired Dionysian nymph, a Valkyrie riding clouds of ash into battle but whose real weapon was a mask of Bohemian cheer. She is a bakeneko in human form come to torment men to her will and he, like so many others has fallen under her spell.

He puts a hand behind her head and sits up with her. She yelps, surprised, and wraps her arms around his shoulders. When he hangs his leg over the side of the hammock a wave rushing by washes over his toes. She looks him in the eyes, hers heavy-lidded, pupils dilated, and he presses his forehead to hers and laughs. He's overthinking the situation. This is just supposed to be about them having fun. Whatever happens when they get back to Soul Society, for now this is just a summer fling. The hotel staff already think they are cheating spouses on a rendezvous.

She brings her hands to cradle his face and he takes hold of her wrists to keep her hands there while the wind dries the sweat off their skin, and whips their hair about their faces, and the hammock sways beneath them. He wonders if she can see the thoughts swirling around his head when she looks at him like that.

When he comes, he presses her back into the hammock, and marks her neck with his teeth. She holds him there, arms about his waist, already half-asleep again and whispers with a giggle, "Later, I think we should go skinny-dipping."

Of course she does. He pinches her butt, making her squeal and replies, "Go back to sleep. I'll look out for dangerous seagulls."


End file.
